Pete Nebhut

We started this Twitter list almost two years ago with names of people who have been active (online or offline) in the discussion of hunger. Since then it's grown as more and more people and organizations find Twitter a valid way to bring the community online.   From time to time, I'll re-tweet the URL to this post. If you'd like your name added to this list, comment here with your Twittername, send Twitter reply to  @TysonFoods, or email me at ed.nicholson@Tyson dot com   I probably won't add you unless you ask me, so if you want to be added (some folks would prefer their names not be on the list), just ask!

There's also a comprehensive hunger twitterers list at http://twitter.com/TysonFoods/hunger-communityh to  which you can subscribe with one click. 

Now. You all go follow each other and talk amongst yourselves.

http://twitter.com/sharestrength  SOS primary account
http://twitter.com/FeedingAmerica  Feeding America
http://twitter.com/billshore Billy Shore, founder of Share Our Strength
http://twitter.com/dpmichel Dan Michel--social media for Feeding America
http://twitter.com/ellendamaschino Ellen Damaschino SOS OFL Hall of Fame Chef and blogger
http://twitter.com/hungeractions Take Action on Hunger
http://twitter.com/rockforhunger  Rock for Hunger
http://twitter.com/FTWM Feed Them With Music
http://twitter.com/AndreaSherwood Andrea Sherwood--Tyson Foods Hunger Relief Team
http://twitter.com/Ddavenport  David Davenport, President & CEO, Capital Area Food Bank of Texas (CAFB)
http://twitter.com/lisa_goddard    Lisa Goddard, Online Marketing Director, CAFB
http://twitter.com/Karlacantu  Karla Cantu, Senior Director of Agency Relations, CAFB
http://twitter.com/kimberwillis Kim Willis, Communications Manager, CAFB
http://twitter.com/molls2009 Molly Robbins, Community Events Manager, CAFB
http://twitter.com/pastelmagick   Emily Babb, Donor Services Manager, CAFB
http://twitter.com/jelyon John Lyon, Faith-Based Capacity Building-VISTA, CAFB
http://twitter.com/jcdwyer JC Dwyer, Texas Food Bank Network, Statewide Advocacy Director,
http://twitter.com/clarknwark Michael Clark, Mitchell Communications
http://elisemitch  Elise Mitchell, Mitchell Communications
http://twitter.com/EricaBenavides San Antonio Food Bank Community Relations Manager
http://twitter.com/EndChildHunger  Michael Farver
http://twitter.com/susanapics Susan Adcock Photoblogger
http://twitter.com/ederdn Ed Nicholson, personal account
http://twitter.com/azganjar   A. Zganjar, Share Our Strength
http://twitter.com/SuzyTwohig Suzy Twohig, Share Our Strength
http://twitter.com/TSARedKettle The Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign
http://twitter.com/teamlivefeed Tom Robinson, Live Feed (Music for hunger relief, St. Louis)
http://twitter.com/FriendsofWFP Friends of the World Food Program
http://twitter.com/cookingwithamy Cooking With Amy-- Hunger Challenge Blogger
http://twitter.com/egratto Genie Gratto-- Hunger Challenge Blogger
http://twitter.com/marianiles Maria Niles--Hunger Challenge Blogger
http://twitter.com/TexansVsHunger  Texas Food Bank Network
http://twitter.com/whatscooking  Michelle Stern
http://twitter.com/foodbankccs Food Bank of ContraCosta and Solano Counties
http://twitter.com/pdxmission Portland Rescue Mission, Portland, Oregon
http://twitter.com/ftmyerssoupktch Judy--Ft. Myers Soup Kitchen
http://twitter.com/aafb  Association of Arizona Food Banks
http://twitter.com/new_community  New Community Mobile Food Pantry, Naperville, IL
http://twitter.com/markarnoldy Mark Arnoldy-focuses on international malnutrition
http://twitter.com/SchoolLunch Healthful meals & nutrition education for children
http://twitter.com/suzannenlee Suzanne Lee, Dir. of Communications & Mktg.   Care & Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado
http://twitter.com/Deca_Dietician  DeCA Dietician Ft. Lee, VA
http://twitter.com/homewatchnwa Homewatch Northwest Arkansas
http://twitter.com/CWS_Crop    Church World Service
http://twitter.com/GPCAH Greater Philadephia Coalition Against Hunger
http://twitter.com/SecondHelpings  Second Helpings, Indianapolis   
http://twitter.com/miriamskitchen Miriam's Kitchen--serving homeless in DC
http://twitter.com/BreadfortheCity Bread for the City, Washington, DC
http://twitter.com/enklings   Tim Blair, hunger activist
http://twitter.com/poppypembroke Poppy Pembroke Communications Mgr.,Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties
http://twitter.com/heifer  Heifer International
http://twitter.com/heiferportland  Heifer Portland
http://twitter.com/kidsfoodbasket  Kids Food Basket.  Grand Rapids, Michigan
http://twitter.com/BreadHolly Holly Hight--Bread for the World
http://twitter.com/hungerthon  WHY  whyhunger.org
http://twitter.com/fighthunger  World Food Programme
http://twitter.com/WorldFoodPrize World Food Prize
http://twitter.com/StopHunger MAZON--hunger relief organization 
http://twitter.com/EndChildHunger  End Child Hunger, Michael Farver
http://twitter.com/firstthebasics First the Basics (helping people find hot meals)
http://twitter.com/URMission Union Rescue Mission, Little Rock
http://twitter.com/walkforhunger  Kristin--Project Bread--The Walk for Hunger
http://twitter.com/phxmission Phoenix Rescue Mission 
http://twitter.com/creativelyme Sarah Hall
http://twitter.com/FeedINsHungry Emily Bryant
http://twitter.com/WalkandKnock Mary Chant  Walk and Knock-annual food drive
http://twitter.com/swong7   Stacy Wong , Greater Boston Food Bank
http://twitter.com/HandsOnHartford    Hands on Hartford
http://twitter.com/ChicagoShares Chicago Shares
http://twitter.com/localfooddude Timothy Cipriano, New Haven School Systems and Local Food Dude
http://twitter.com/MOWFeedMore Meals on Wheels Serving Central Virginia
http://twitter.com/AJoyFULLHoliday A  Joyfull Holiday 
http://twitter.com/dipaolamomma Lara DiPaola
http://twitter.com/1millionmeals Jeffrey Strain, Penny Experiment
http://twitter.com/foodhunger  The Volunteer Way
http://twitter.com/Harvest4Hunger Harvest for Hunger
http://twitter.com/pghfoodbank Pittsburgh Food Bank
http://twitter.com/breadjennifer Jennifer Stapleton, Bread for the World
http://twitter.com/bread4theworld Bread for the World
http://twitter.com/CCSTB  Community Center of St. Bernard
http://twitter.com/thelastshow The Last Show--Karen
http://twitter.com/rjtbaum   Robert J. Teitelbaum
http://www.twitter.com/dinnergarden  The Dinner Garden
http://twitter.com/HartfordFoodSys Hartford Food System
Feeding America Food Banks
http://twitter.com/2harvest Second Harvest Heartland
http://twitter.com/2harvestCFL Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, Orlando
http://twitter.com/2ndharvest  2nd Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara & San Mateo Counties
http://twitter.com/ACFB Atlanta Community Food Bank
http://twitter.com/arfoodbank   Arkansas Foodbank Network
http://twitter.com/BayAreaFoodBank Bay Area Food Bank
http://twitter.com/brfoodbank    Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank
http://twitter.com/CAFB Capital Area Food Bank of Texas, Inc.
http://twitter.com/CareandShareFB  Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado
http://twitter.com/CentralILFoodbk   Central IL Foodbank
http://twitter.com/centralpafb Central Pennsylvania Food Bank
http://twitter.com/CFBFresno  Community Food Bank, Fresno, CA
http://twitter.com/chattfood Chattanooga Area Food Bank
http://twitter.com/CityHarvest   City Harvest   New York,NY
http://twitter.com/CleveFoodbank Cleveland Foodbank, Inc.
http://twitter.com/CommFoodBankNJ Community Food Bank of New Jersey
http://twitter.com/CTFoodBank Connecticut Food Bank
http://twitter.com/CVFBFeedMore Central Virginia Foodbank, Inc.
http://twitter.com/DailyBread Daily Bread Food Bank, Miami
http://twitter.com/eifoodbank Eastern Illinois Foodbank, Urbana
http://twitter.com/FeedAmericaWI America's Second Harvest of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
http://twitter.com/feedingwestmich Feeding America West Michigan Food Bank
http://twitter.com/FoodBank4NYC Food Bank For New York City
http://twitter.com/foodbankccs Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano
http://twitter.com/FoodBankCENC Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina, Raleigh
http://twitter.com/FoodBankNENY Regional Food Bank Northeastern New York
http://twitter.com/FoodBankofCC Food Bank of Corpus Christi
http://twitter.com/FoodBankofDE Food Bank of Delaware, Newark
http://twitter.com/foodbankrgv Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley, Inc.
http://twitter.com/foodbankrockies Food Bank of the Rockies, Denver
http://twitter.com/FoodbankSBC Foodbank of Santa Barbara County
http://twitter.com/foodbanksj       Food Bank of South Jersey
http://twitter.com/FoodBankSTier Food Bank of the Southern Tier, Elmira, NY
http://twitter.com/FoodBkNIndiana Food Bank of Northern Indiana
http://twitter.com/FoodDepository Greater Chicago Food Depository
http://twitter.com/FoodLinkNY   Foodlink Food Bank, Rochester, NY
http://twitter.com/FoodShuttle Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, Raleigh, NC
http://twitter.com/FreestoreFB Freestore FoodBank, Cincinnati
http://twitter.com/Gleaners Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan
http://twitter.com/GleanersFBIndy Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, Inc.
http://twitter.com/Gr8BosFoodBank The Greater Boston Food Bank
http://twitter.com/growthefoodbank Capital Area Food Bank, DC
http://twitter.com/HarvestersORG Harvesters - The Community Food Network, Kansas City
http://twitter.com/HoustonFoodBank Houston Food Bank
http://twitter.com/hpfoodbank High Plains Food Bank, Amarillo
http://twitter.com/lafoodbank Los Angeles Regional Foodbank
http://twitter.com/LCFBFoodFIght Lowcountry Food Bank, Charleston, SC
http://twitter.com/MANNAFoodBank MANNA FoodBank, Ashville NC
http://twitter.com/mfbn Montana Food Bank Network
http://twitter.com/Mid_OHFoodbank Mid-Ohio FoodBank
http://twitter.com/missingmeals  Second Harvest Heartland
http://twitter.com/NEILB Northern Illinois Food Bank
http://twitter.com/NNFoodBank Food Bank of Northern Nevada
http://twitter.com/northernlakesfb Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank
http://twitter.com/ntfb North Texas Food Bank
http://twitter.com/nwncfoodbank   Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina
http://twitter.com/onecanonedollar  Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina
http://twitter.com/OreFoodBankFA Oregon Food Bank
http://twitter.com/ozksfoodharvest Ozarks Food Harvest, Springfield, MO
http://twitter.com/PghFoodBank Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank
http://twitter.com/refb Redwood Empire Food Bank, Santa Rosa, CA
http://twitter.com/rfbo Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma (OKC)
http://twitter.com/RIFoodBank Rhode Island Community Food Bank, Providence
http://twitter.com/safoodbank San Antonio Food Bank
http://twitter.com/SecondHarvestOH   Second Harvest Ohio
http://twitter.com/semofoodbank  Southeast Missouri Food Bank
http://twitter.com/sffoodbank San Francisco Food Bank
http://twitter.com/SHFBofMidTN Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee
http://twitter.com/SoTxFoodBank South Texas Food Bank, Laredo
http://twitter.com/SPFB South Plains Food Bank, Lubbock
http://twitter.com/stlfoodbank St. Louis Area Foodbank
http://twitter.com/StMarysFoodBank St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance, Phoenix
http://twitter.com/TAFoodbank Tarrant Area Food Bank, Ft. Worth
http://twitter.com/threesquareLV Three Square Food Bank, Las Vegas
http://twitter.com/UnitedFoodBank United Food Bank, Mesa AZ
http://twitter.com/utahfoodbank Utah Food Bank Services, Salt Lake City
http://twitter.com/VermontFoodbank Vermont Foodbank, Inc., South Barre
http://twitter.com/WeldFoodBank Weld Food Bank, Greeley, CO
http://twitter.com/WestOhioFB West Ohio Food Bank
http://twitter.com/culinarschmooze Culinary Schmooze
http://twitter.com/schoolsserve The National School Food Drive
http://twitter.com/famtofamily Family to Family
http://twitter.com/AggregateND   The Online Carpool for Produce
http://twitter.com/FoodBanking Global FoodBanking Network
http://twitter.com/IowaFBA Iowa Food Bank Association
http://twitter.com/northernlakesfb  Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank, Duluth
http://twitter.com/FeedingMaine  Good Shepherd Food Bank, Maine
http://twitter.com/KimDoyleWille  Kim Doyle Wille 
http://twitter.com/MarlitaH  Marlita H
http://twitter.com/angelfrmcanada  Robin and Craig
http://twitter.com/MargaretChoSac  Jeffrey Goldade
http://www.twitter.com/gransome Gary Ransome
http://www.twitter.com/breadrobin Robin Stephenson, Bread for the World
https://twitter.com/communityserv  Community Servings, Massachusetts
https://twitter.com/novusint  Jeremy Lutgen,  Novis International
https://twitter.com/HeresLife  Here's Life Inner City
https://twitter.com/paladinette  Paladinette
https://twitter.com/MetroCareRing Metro CareRing, Denver

Twitter Lists--Hunger Relief (one click following)
http://twitter.com/sharestrength/lists Share Our Strength (@ShareStrength) is doing a wonderful job of categorizing and listing its stakeholders involved in hunger relief on the Twitter List tool. 
http://twitter.com/TysonFoods/hunger-communityh

By Ed Nicholson

The second stop of my mini-tour last week was in Bloomfield, Connecticut, where Scott Henderson and I visited Foodshare foodbank to help fulfill the donation brought about by lots of Connecticut people engaging in the WeCanEndThis.com digital can drive.  We were also privileged to see Darryl Ohrt, whose company Humongo played a big role in the success of WeCanEnd This. 

As I've mentioned before, visiting foodbanks is always inspiring, especially when the leadership takes the time to visit with us, as Foodshare President and CEO, Gloria McAdam did.  Here's a bit of an interview I did with Gloria in which she describes the landscape of the issue of hunger in her area, plus the work of the foodbank.

Last fall, Tongal.com and Tyson Foods announced a collaborative effort to raise awareness for hunger relief in America through a video contest. Sonny Geha, a recent graduate of Michigan State University, entered the contest with his video highlighting the Mid-Michigan Food Bank. Geha’s video was selected as one of the top five, and as a result, Tyson Foods donated more than 30,000 pounds of much-needed chicken and beef to the Food Bank this morning.

Gehas’s film, “Mid-Michigan Food Bank: a brighter Michigan,” highlighted the work of volunteers at the Mid-Michigan Food Bank.  In the film, volunteers spoke about the growing need for hunger relief throughout the region. Each year, more than 58,300 people in mid-Michigan receive emergency food assistance through the Mid-Michigan Food Bank’s hunger-relief network. Nearly 30% of those recipients are children.
 

By Ed Nicholson    

 Dede Peters had an idea.  Dede, owner of Fayetteville's ddp gallery, decided to recruit artists from among the community she had helped support to create works of art on and with grocery bags.  The works were then sold, with the major portion of the proceeds going to the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank. 

     Dede called us to see if we would be interested in getting involved.  We thought the idea was innovative and engaging, and offered to match dollars raised with in-kind donations. 

     I think it's a great example of someone creatively applying the resources at their disposal to address the issue.  You dont' have to be rich.  You don't have to be big or famous. You just need to have a will and a heart.  As our friends at Share Our Strength remind us,  everyone has a strength to share. 

By Ed Nicholson

Last fall, Tongal.com and Tyson Foods announced a collaborative effort to raise awareness for hunger relief in America through a video contest. Thanks to Lorraine Arromando’s video highlighting Cheverus High School’s annual Thanksgiving food drive, Tyson Foods donated more than 35,000 pounds of chicken to the Good Shepherd Food-Bank this morning. This is the first of the five winning videos that will receive Tyson donations to their local Feeding America food banks.  We'll be featuring the other videos as we make food donations in their areas.

I know there's a lot of concern about the fact that volunteer corps are aging; some wonder as to whether the next generation of hunger fighters will step up.

Here's something to give you hope.

View Tyson Foods Hunger Relief Donations in a larger map

Here's a Google map I created on Friday of the truckload donations Tyson has done in the past year.  Notice all of the icons are clickable for more information. You can zoom in to the street address (with apologies to those recipients whose addresses I didn't nail precisely--I did this all in one day).    We plan on keeping it updated, so it will be an archive of what we're doing (just wish it had been around ten years ago). 

Creating it got me thinking:  Food banks could use this free tool to plot all of their agencies, along with their relevant information.  Notice above that Goodgle supplies you with some embeddable code, so you can put it on your blog or website.  You can set it with any number of collaborators (including a wide-open wiki style), so conceivably agencies could enter and edit their own information. 

Getting started is easy, and begins with setting up a Google account. 

Imagine if all of the food banks did this, then the maps were aggregated; if the world could see all 63,000 agencies in one view, then zoom into the ones working in their state, community and neighborhood.   That might be kinda cool.

By Elise Mitchell

As Ed mentioned in his post earlier this week, the donation last Saturday to the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank received a lot of positive media coverage and helped bring to light the hard work of many volunteers.  We’ve posted some of those stories here from our local TV stations KFSM, KHOG and KNWA and appreciate their coverage of the event.

While sometimes it can be tough to get media attention for good news, we’ve actually found media to be very receptive to our outreach for Tyson’s donations to food banks around the country.  Our guess is that increasingly, hunger is newsworthy, which is both good and bad, of course.  Good because so many people are actively trying to help those in need; bad because the need continues to grow as a result of the economic stress people are enduring. 

Yes, we’ve been fortunate to earn our share of coverage, but our ultimate goal in doing this is to continue to shine the spotlight on the cause itself.  Hopefully, from greater awareness will come greater resources.  With all of us working together as well as greater attention brought to the fight against hunger, we can continue to make a difference.
 

Elise Mitchell is the President and CEO of Mitchell Communications.

 

UofA student athletes help distribute more than 40k lbs. of food to NW AR hunger relief agencies

By Ed Nicholson

When athletes make the news, it's usually for one of two reasons: Either they're excelling on the field or messing up in public. What a lot of people don't realize--and what  doesn't get reported often enough--is that most university athletic programs have student life involvement programs that regularly engage kids in worthy activities in their communities.
This past Saturday, on a cold, damp morning, perfect for sleeping in, more than 130 University of Arkansas athletes came out to assist in the delivery of 40,000 pounds of donated food to the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank.
It was the fourth year in a row Tyson Foods and the UofA had worked with national organization Lift Up America on the event, which works to engage student athletes in community service, donates food to the food bank, and creates awareness for hunger in our home community.  More than 50 of the food bank's agencies came out to receive food.
All three of the local broadcast affiliates showed up, as well as two newspapers.  Lots of folks got fed and the athletes got some well-deserved positive attention for their off-the-field good works.
I'll be posting more stuff from Saturday's event in the next few days.

By Ed Nicholson

In August of 2008, we did our first social media engagement donation with the Capital Area Food Bank in Austin.  There weren't many such efforts going on at that time (a lot since). It's been cited as a case study several times, and since then, we've considered CAFB a great partner. As I've said many times, they are definitely among the best food banks at using social networking channels in reaching their stakeholders with the crystal-clear message, "HUNGER IS UNNACEPTABLE." 

Today we're announcing a new effort!

For the next couple of weeks CAFB will be holding their Souper Bowl of Caring drive,  in conjunction with the largest youth-led food and fund  raising effort in the country.  In support of this event, for every comment you make to this blog post telling us you think hunger is unacceptable (if you want to add why, that would be even better), we'll donate 100 pounds of food.   We'll do the same if you post it to your own blog or if you send a Tweet with the hashtag #SBOCAustin.  We'll keep donating up to a 35,000 pound truckload.

So come on. Support the fabulous work of the Capital Area Food Bank. Tell the world HUNGER IS UNACCEPTABLE.

 

Erma Smith

Erma Smith is more than a tireless advocate for the hungry.  She’s also an inspiration and a role model in her determination to feed her neighbors. For 25 years, she has been active in fighting hunger, making her a natural to be named our newest Tyson Foods Hunger All-Star of the Month.
Erma began as a volunteer with the Southwest Arkansas Foodbank and then served as its executive director for many years. While there, she helped provide food regularly to 100 food pantries, shelters, soup kitchens and other organizations. Each year, she distributed about 1.5 million pounds of food and grocery products to the hungry. She personally secured much of the food provided, relying on the  Arkansas Foodbank Network and other groups. Her food bank also distributed clothing, school supplies, household items, toys and personal care products through a program called Gifts in Kind. 
Erma and her team of dedicated volunteers prepared gift baskets for those in need and also as a “thank you” to volunteer food pantry operators. Her handmade gift baskets were the most sought-after door prize at the group’s annual gathering. She retired in May of this year, reluctantly, and only because her doctor insisted.  She continues, however, to make the gift baskets herself-- a labor of love.
Connie Bledsoe, agency relations director for the Arkansas Foodbank Network, says Erma still comes to the agency to volunteer.
“Erma is just a kind and giving person who shares her love with everyone,” Bledsoe says.
Recently, Erma was honored by the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance at a breakfast at the Governor’s Mansion. In her remarks, she noted the importance of “service for the Lord” -- words that have inspired an admirable life’s work.
Bledsoe adds, “That’s her mission- serving others. I don’t think she’ll ever stop. You can depend on Erma for anything.”

Erma was given her award on October 28, 2009 at a ceremony at the Arkansas Food Bank Network, attended by Arkansas Governor, Mike Beebe, and Vicki Escarra, CEO of Feeding America.  In honor of Erma's being named Hunger All-Star of the Month, Tyson will donated a truckload of food (app. 30,000 pounds) to the Arkansas Foodbank Network in Little Rock.